AuthorTopic: Let's Horribly Break Hidden Agenda (Read 30612 times)

Hidden Agenda takes place in a fictional Central American country called Chimerica. You play as the Presidente of a junta that assumed power after the overthrow of Presidente Farsante, a incredibly nepotistic dictator that manged to have alienated everybody. Your goal is to try and manage the balance between the leftists and rightists while slowly trying to rebuild Chimerica into a propserous country. There is already a really good LP of Hidden Agenda going on in the SomethingAwful forums (altough non-members can't access it currently at the moment now non-members can access it, and quite some time, although I don't update the OP).

I'm not playing Hidden Agenda in this LP. Or, more to the point, I'm not playing Hidden Agenda as it is intended; where you play as a kindly man trying to make Chimerica into a better place and failing hilarlously. Rather, I am going to try different tactics, plans, glitches, and schemes...in an attempt to experiment and see how the game operates, and see the extent of my power. Will my experiments save Chimerica, or destroy it? Let's find out.

Experiments*No Cabinet Run*No Civil War Run*Popular Stability Run

To suggest an experiment, post it in the thread, and I'll put it in the list, and see if I can do it. The three experiments currently listed here are experiments that I plan to run.---Hidden Agenda has a Reference Manual, which helps to describe the world in better detail. The problem is, the Reference Manual is not online. Instead, I present a summary of Chimerica, based on information in the game itself, in the spoilers below. It's not accurate, and I'll update this as the game continues. Don't read the spoilers if you haven't played the game.\EDIT: The Reference Manual is now uploaded on Abandonia. I made some comments on it in this Interlude.

19th Century: Introduction of export crops into Chimerica. The rich oligarchs began kicking poor people out of their land.

20th Century: Political conflicts between the cotton producers and coffee producers lead to violence. American troops landed in Chimerica to restore order.

1920's: General Francisco Dinando (nick-named The Lion) waged a "war of resistance" against the United States and its occupation of Chimerica. National Liberation idolize this man, and if you are leading a pro-NL government, you may receive a decision later on to form a personality cult around The Lion, so that children learn of the need to resist against imperialism. [Dinando is his real name, but National Liberation wanted the government to 'lionize' him, hence why I call him that.]

1932-1948: Most of Chimerica's modern history can be traced to the Conservative Party, dominated by Emilio Rosario, "a long-ruling Presidente". In 1932, Emilio Rosario gained control of the Presidency of Chimerica. He murdered Dinando and suppressed a bloody peasant uprising, while also presiding over the US' withdrawal from Chimerica. The Rosarios are very wealthy cotton planters and their agenda seems to be in favor of manitaining the current 'fedual' structure of society. However, in 1948, Emilio Rosario was overthrown in a coup led by General Farsante himself. Its extensive wealth was untouched, but the Rosarios were excluded from having any sort of influence in politics. Farsante would rule Chimerica with an iron fist for 40 years.

1950-1954: In the 1940's, Colonel Leonard Flores formed the Chrisitian Reform Party, a "popular alternative". Leonard Flores also provided assistance to Farsante's coup. Leonard Flores won the 1950 election with 65% of the vote, and ran a short-lived 'reformist' government from 1950 to 1954. What doomed the government was land reform. Leonard Flores pursued a land reform program, which targeted rich corporations and the rich landowning class. Eventually, the CIA became paranoid and thought Leonard Flores was a communist. In 1954, Leonard Flores was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup and murdered. His successor to the Presidency, General Farsante, repealed land reform.

However, Farsante did not appear to hate Christian Reform as much as the other parties. Christian Reform has long been only tolerated opposition party in Chimerica.

1960's: The death of reformism meant that change wasn't going to happen within the system, leading to a radicalization of the peasentry. This likely led to the rise of a 'Resistance', which slowly evolved into the socialist National Liberation Front. The actual formation of such a party is unknown. However, we do know that Manuel Calderon Igelias joined up with the 'resistance' when he was a teenager. At the start of the game, he is 34. Assuming that a person becomes a teenager at the age of 13, this suggests that the National Liberation Front was formed AFTER the year 1968. At the same time, Julio Olivares Las Casa began preaching Liberation Theology in the mid-1960's.

1948-1988: Farsante ended up creating a state that served only his family's interests, ignoring the interests of...everyone else. He also pampered his private 'Farsante Guard' while regulating the Chimerican army to "second-class status". This suggests a sort of paranoia within the own army, which was borne out during the Insurrection. Eventually, Farsante made even the conservative elite angry, and eventually, the remenants of the Conservative Party reinvented itself into the Popular Stability party.

-The Insurrection: It started when Farsante murdered Aramando Lanza in 1988, a Chrisitan Reform politican. His death sparked a general uprising against Farsante's rule. Each party played a role in ousting Farsante:*National Liberation:-Julio Olivares Las Casa provided refuge to the underground opposition during the Insurrection-Manual Calderon Igelias won several important victory during the battle of the Insurrection.*Chrisitan Reform: Franciso Ferrante Oberon is known for his skills in diplomacy and working on the sidelines. It is possible that Oberon was the creator of this Junta of Insurrection, and for the creation of a unified military of leftists and rightists.*Popular Stability: Antonio Aljeos Espinales supported the Insurrection by turning his military division against Farsante "at a critical junture".*United States: Withdrew US military aid and foregin aid gradually. US aid to Farsante was cut immediately right after the murder of Aramando Lanza, but was then gradually phased out. By the last 4 months of Farsante's regime, there were no US military and foregin aid whatsoever, and the Farsante regime was diplomatically isolated (and possibly driving his army to greater desperation).

5) "None of the groups that opposed Farsante was strong enough to govern in the post-Farsante era, so they have joined together in a coalition Junta of the Insurrection.

The Junta have decided someone must lead Chimerica in its hour of need. By popular mandate that someone is you."---Hidden Agenda Manual

PRESIDENTAL CANDIDATES OF THE POLITICAL PARTIESManuel Calderon Igelias lead the National Liberation.Franscio Rosario Rosanes lead Popular Stability.Fransico Ferrante Oberon Ignacio Nuez Laranjera (pacifisit wimp) lead Chrisitan Reform.

The leader of the Junta of Insurrection (i.e., you) have a chance of being nominated by one of these political parties in Presidental elections. Presidental candidates that get nominated are forced to resign their post in the Cabinet to campagin against you.

ECONOMYAgiculture is mostly dominated by export crops such as cotton planters and coffee planters. Mostly cotton. Consider that Chimerica received a lot of foregin aid from 'Other' nations not aligned in the Cold War, and that Farsante was still receiving such aid even after the US cut off ties with Farsante. It would appear that such exports may be rather important for the world economy, though I do not know why.

At the time of Farsante's overthrow, the price for coffee was $1.25/kg, and the price for cotton was $0.75/kg. However, Chimerica exported 40 million kilograms of coffee and 110 million kilograms of cotton. Chimerica makes $50 million dollars through selling coffee, and $82.5 million dollars through selling cotton.

One of the many political fault-lines in Chimerica is over agriculture. Popular Stability receives most of its supports from the Cotton Planters, while Christian Reform receives most of its support from the Coffee Planters.

National Liberation is an interesting case. On one hand, National Liberation appeals to the rural poor by speaking for the interests of the 'food growers', those people producing edible foodstuff instead of export crops. Yet, National Liberation also speaks in favor of the urban poor when they call for price controls and rationing, which harms the interests and profits of said 'food growers'. NL will have to walk a fine line between appeasing the urban masses and pandering to their rural supporters; one way to do so is by using government money to subsidize the 'food growers'.

There is a small-scale industry to the Chimerican economy, altough this is due to the low minimum wage in Chimerica (less than $0.15/hour).

RELIGIONThe population of Chimerica is mostly Catholic. However, the political parties themselves appear to take up secular positions, with a few notable example.

Chrisitan Reform party is backed by the leadership of the Catholic Church.

Julio Olivares Las Casa, the main preacher of the Liberation Theology, is a part of National Liberation. Julio Olvaries retired from the Jesusits after getting criticism from the rest of the Catholic Church.

Beranado Whitmyre Alvarado, member of Popular Stability, converted to Protestanism and then entered politics afterwards.

Here is a list of bugs currently found in the game during my playthroughs. Ones with stars are also covered in the LP (or will be covered).1) Sometimes, when Correa gets dismissed, he says nothing, and his suggestion for policy (restore him to his position) is "."*2) The United States can provide military aid to fight off the reactos. They will do so by working with Colonel Elhrich, who is in exile in Panama, and Correa will not like it. If the US send in military aid, the Cabinet seems to begin discussing university protests instead of the US military aid. (Off-screen experiments show that Christian Reform and Popular Stability talk about university protests; National Liberation instead deal react normally to the US military aid proposal.)3) Talking to the Campensio and accepting his advice to fund education has a chance of greying out the "Continue" button, forcing you to restart. This glitch occurs with other people too, and the best way to avoid it is to fire your Cabinet minister before talking to the Influential and accepting his advice.*4) People can come back from exile to run against you during elections, even if they tried to kill you.*5) El Independite can come back to life after being destroyed by LIMIPA. They will come back to life if Correa becomes Sole Chief of Staff.*6) People who resign from office can be reappointed to their same position without penalty.*7) Reactos will always attack cooperatives, even if none exists.* Oberon can launch military coups. According to Jim, there has been no centrist military coup, so he has programmed the game to ensure only the left and right can launch coups.*9) Spending money on health care, then revoking funds, will still lead to a decreased Infant Mortality Rate.*10) The right-wing military cannot interrupt land reform, no matter how many people they kill.*11) It is possible to both lose the election AND later on have the new President get impeached.

Pathos

I vote for crushing the extreme left AND right and executing any religious people. If that's not possible, set yourself a quota of people to have killed per year, if it gives you figures in the game itself.

Independent. Rogue commando of the US-based Symbionese Liberation Army. ... went into political exile into Chimerica and assisted the National Liberation Front in governing 'liberated territories'. His governing policies made him very (in)famous within the movement itself ... After the Insurrection, it soon became clear that all the 'native' Chimericans did not know how to actually run their country, and required outside assistance. Ealb, against his better judgement, decided to assume power in Chimerica himself, but became frustated with the ignorance and self-interest of the Chimerican population.

At the begining of the game, reporters will ask you certain questions. These questions mostly determine how History will view your regime in the future. I answered these questions using the most Conservative answer possible, but the answers themselves won't affect Chimerica right now anyway. Since all parties of the Junta have to approve of the President, I guess paying lip service to the right-wing isn't really that bad.

And the game tells me to appoint some Cabinet officals. The Cabinet serves a important role to the President: they provide advice to the President concering potential government policy. Appointing politicans to the Cabinet is also a great way to appease them. But having a Cabinet is fraught with its own dangers. Each person in a Cabinet has his own Hiddden Agenda that he or she will promote at all costs, even going so far as to ignore other pressing problems just so his own pet programs get approved. If you propose a policy contrary to that Hidden Agenda, that cabinet member will either just implement his preferred policy instead...or launch a military coup. That being said, it is still always a good idea to have a Cabinet; if only because you can only accept policy recommendations proposed by other people. Therefore, you use the Cabinet as a way to 'choose' the governing policies you want to implement.

Which is why, in this run, we will go without a Cabinet.

Instead, we're going to talk to the people directly. Each 'Influential' have their own Hidden Agenda too, and will also implement their preferred policy, but they cannot launch any military coup. They can only support them, at best. For this run, I will go from the upper-left corner and move right, starting with the Landless Laborer.

Each influential have a little biography letting you know about the person you're meeting with. Despite the fact that most of the people we're meeting with are dirt-poor, they also happen to be leaders of political organizations, meaning that you shouldn't under-estimate them. A mob of poor people is not something to laugh at.

When you meet up with someone, you can choose to Accept or Decline their idea, or ask your Cabinet advisor for a different policy recommendation. You can also put it on the Cabinet Agenda, so that you can later ask your entire Cabinet about the policy. In this run, I'll accept all recommendations. Even contradictory ones. If that sound stupid...well, that because it is. However, I remembered hearing that the 'No Cabinet' run is basically an instant-win. Since you are appeasing everyone, nobody will bother to kill you. Besides, land reform sounds like a concept the SLA supports.

Even when you have a Cabinet, you still have to meet up with certain influentials. Here, I meet up with the IMF to borrow some money...even though we are already heavily in debt to begin with. Trust me, we're going to need that money.

And the Americans are resuming military aid...without my premission. Swell. Something I should stress; the Chimerican military is currently split between a leftist commander and a rightist commander, the Americans are sending military aid to the rightists. No way that's going to lead to any trouble.

Chimerica shall put the United States to shame with our universial health care system.

Sometimes, when playing the game, you will receive Interrupts. An Influnetial will just march up right to the Presidental Palace and demand that you speak with him.

Unlike regular encounters, you can't reject his advice outright, partly due to the huge mob waiting outside. You have to ask for advice, and hope that the Cabinet member advising you will argue against his position. Otherwise you have to accept. This policy isn't really that bad though, but there will be other Interrupts that I'm going to loath.

And this is exactly why we borrowed money from the IMF before, to bribe pay for all these pet programs. Not to say this pet program isn't a worthy cause; we are investing in our future. But we aren't going to see a return on our investment here; we got a loan to pay off, and if we end up going in default, then the IMF can march right in and terminate all these awesome programs.

Even policies that don't deal specifically with money do, in a sense, deal with money. Our National Bank can loan money to farmers in our country; we could direct these loans to help out producers of export crops, thereby getting us some cold hard cash in order to pay for education and health care. Giving these loans to 'food producers' instead will help to make Chimerica less reliant on food aid, at the cost of making Chimerica's bankrupcy more likely.

Didn't I just already authorized land reform? Shoo! I'll let you know what type of land reform I want later on.

There are two main "export crops" in Chimerica, Cotton and Coffee. Since we need to ensure a steady stream of income to pay for all our programs, asking these people for help would be in our best interest. After all, these people also want a steady stream of income too, so we should get some sort of common ground.

Too bad the Cotton plantation owner is a jerk. His argument is...a bit lacking in common sense, but it can be argued that land reform may lead to less effienct production, leading to less crops, meaning less money. Fine Cotton Guy, but that won't help us in paying for all these new programs.

Coffee Guy is more reasonable. After the 'revolution' we get to control a bunch of ineffective State Farms (previously massive estates controlled by Farsante) that would be better off in the hands of anybody but the state. Even the National Liberation Front want to turn the State Farms into collectives, where the peasents, and not you, get to rule. While giving free land to the rich and middle-class isn't really a good idea, at least there is a chance that they can use this land to produce more export crops to help pay off our loan. A win-win situation!

WHAT WE DID TODAY*Funded education so that now average Chimericans can learn how to write their own name*Funded health care so that people don't have to worry about dying from the common cold*Promised to loan more money to farmers producing exoitic products called 'food'*Placed price controls so that our people can afford this 'food'*Gave land to 'less-well-off' coffee producers who wouldn't be able to afford a two-story house

I vote for crushing the extreme left AND right and executing any religious people.

I'm trying to think what you mean by 'crushing'. I'm assuming you want the government to wage war against the Extreme Left (National Liberation Front) and Extreme Right (Popular Stability). I don't think it is possible, but I'll still try to think of a way to get this done.

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If that's not possible, set yourself a quota of people to have killed per year, if it gives you figures in the game itself.

Game doesn't give figures, but I can set up a death squad and set it loose against the Influentials.

In each Season, we have 9 encounters that we can use as we see fit. Interrupts count towards our quota, so the most effective way to play this game is to ration your encounters to avoid 'wasting' time.

As I mentioned previously, our military is divided into leftists and rightists. This is our rightist military commander.

If you read between the lines, you know that our rightist commander is interested in gaining more power within the military, especially enough power to suppress the leftists and become the only sole leader of the army. A recipe for trouble, but we accept.

Again? Alright, get me new loans, let's seee what we can do.

Uh, sure. Come on in.

The Farsante Guard was a private military controlled by General Farsante himself. Commited various war crimes, blah blah blah. Let's throw them in prison and show to the International Community what a petty Junta we are.

...uh...

I agree, Correa. I don't quite see why Chimerica needs US military aid in this day and age. In fact, I don't quite see exactly why Chimerica need any military at all. We have no border disputes with our neighbors and no ambitions for an empire. All external threats can be appeased, all internal threats can be bought off. We should disband our military and use those funds to---oh, sorry, Correa, I didn't mean to speak out of turn, you can put that gun down.

Well, I guess it's a nice change of pace. Instead of going over to people and accepting their advice, I could just wait in my office and let them come to me.

...Why does your military need to contact our military? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Eh, whatever. You want to help the rightists, and I'm not crazy enough to stand in your way.

Oh, what now?

...You *BLEEP*ers!

"Oh no, Farsante stole my land and gave it to that evil Senor Tomas...please help me out..." Well, you just exposed that stupid story you told me last season as a lie. That's because we now own all of the lands Farsante stolen, and I specifically ordered for these lands to be handed over to coffee producers. Your goons, on the other hand, are attacking cotton producers.

To you, it's evil to steal land if you're right-wing, but if you're left-wing it's totally alright. Well, *BLEEP* you. *BLEEP* you and *BLEEP* your stupid political cause.

You know what, I got something better. I'll 'accept' your demands...

Then wait for the eventual right-wing reaction to come in and force me to revoke what I previously decreed. That'll show you, Landless Laborer!

...

That's it? No more Interrupts? Finally! Onto business!

Why would you need strikes? Aren't annoying protests enough for you guys?

Okay, now we're done with Interrupts. This is Correa from earlier, our leftist commander. This, by the way, is going to be our last Encounter for the season. We wasted a total of 4 encounters, by the way, in terms of 'accepting a policy proposal and then revoking it just soon after', all thanks to Interrupts.

And he's still going on about the American military aid. Gee, if I didn't know any better, I would think that he would want to attack the rightists.

What We Did Today!*Gave Colonel Ehrlich, leader of the rightists, my offical Presidental blessing to beat up leftist troublemakers.*Gave leftist troublemakers the right to strike.*Kicked out American military advisors to please Sub-Commandate Correa (since he finds the idea of asking for premission to beat up rightist troublemakers to be a bit uncouth).*Arrested rightist troublemakers due to their ties to the Farsante regime*Borrowed more money from the IMF to pay for our glorious health care and literacy programs that are already putting the First World to shame.

I like this game, but it seems the choices are Commie or Fascist for government types. I'm sort of surprised how well your "do whatever they say" game is going, but perhaps it just goes to how absurdly the game works.

Cool, I finally "won". Since there is no "win" condition, I'm defining this as "lasting the entire 3 years, and winning the elections". I was a commie.

Here's a challenge I've been meaning to try, but you might get a kick out of playing: The minister swap Start with ministers in one party, then switch to ministers in another party. This may be the only way to win on a moderate route (as the moderates are wimps until after the initial nation-breaking events run their course).

Moderates really suck in this game, though it seems somewhat logical to me. The action of the game takes time during the Cold War, when almost every minor country had to choose its team. Also the starting conditions are set up in a way where no middle route is possible: almost every conflict is about choosing between the left and the right.

But yeah, they really look like morons. "OK, freeze the prices. No, wait, don't. Oh, or maybe yes. Let's have a group hug!".

Oh. The American ambassador. Looks like he's going to whine about how we kicked the American military advisors out---

Huh. Well I won't turn down free money so...sure. Why not.

Why don't foregin powers assign somebody who actually 'know' Chimerica personally? And not treat the Chimerican ambassadorship as some sort of stepping stone of ambassadorial career advancement? It's like they don't even treat our government seriously.

...Er.

Economic aid from socialist nations is nice and all, but military aid is an entirely different matter. Making the Americans angry is a great way to lose American aid dollars, leaving us reliant on the Socialists and the "Other" nations. The Socialists, for their part, aren't really as generous as the Americans in giving aid dollars though.

That being said, I'm not going to turn down free money so...sure?

Yeah right. There's no way that a Russian military presence just 3 hours away from the United States would seriously threaten the United States, especially in the event of a...nuclear...war...

Oh dear. I need something to distract myself. If only an Interrupt can come in with another delimma.

Uh...didn't we just throw them in prison? Give me a copy of El Independiente!

Uh-huh. 'Insufficent evidence.' Alright, Lady Mendoza, the Farsante Guard is thrown back into prison. You can go home now.

Oh yeah, let ensure the Farsante Guard gets their due punishment. Judicial independence is for sisses! Guilty before proven innocent!

...

Oh hello. Come on in, Colonel Ehrlich. And 'mediate'.

Yes, the wounds of the Insurrection will take a long time to heal. That's why you now share command with a peasent gurellia leader.

However, you do got a point. If Padilla's own prison guards are the ones muiniting and freeing him, then it suggest that he has at least some supporters. And I admit that you're likely displeased about how National Liberation goons can walk around unmolested, so let make things equal. An amnesty.

On one condition.

I meet up with Padilla myself.

I think Padilla is the only person in the game that I can't understand. Everyone else, I guess I can sympathize, but Padilla? He's a special case. First off, he's the last supporter of Farsante. In a country where literally everyone else hates him.

Secondly, he wants to cleanse the land of "subversives". This is right after I let a bunch of Russian military advisors land in Chimerica. You think he'd target these Russian military advisors. Nope.

He likes to kill leftist civilians, but he's too cowardly to murder a single soldier. He runs a pretty lame death squad.

Padilla also have a big ego problem. According to his biography, he blamed Farsante's fall on weak-willed military leaders. One of these 'weak-willed military leaders' happen to be Colonel Ehrlich, the general who called for his amnesty. I can't see Padilla getting any new friends any time soon.

And then we come to the fact that Padilla's death squad murdered several university students, and it is these murders that created 'The Mothers', a group dedicated solely to stopping the death squads. I suppose the university is a hotbed of leftist activity (that's why Farsante shut that down late in his rule), but I still have a very hard time thinking why Padilla would murder students, and how these murders contribute in any way to stopping 'subversives'. These murders actually seemed to have backfired heavily.

You know, I am not truly sure if Mendoza is telling the truth. I mean, Mendoza is likely telling the truth. We're dealing with an insane and vengeful death squad. But I was burnt before with that Land Now! stupidity...

I'm also not sure if Mendoza's proposed solution would work either. Padilla can break out of prison before. Other than that though, why not?

Oh no! Who could have ever suspected that the plan to fuse two competiting military forces together into one Reconciliation Force would accidently encourage corruption among the high-ranking military officers who know they can't get removed?

There's only room for one Colonel in our army. Take Colonel Mendieta away, Americans!

What hypocrites. I'm sure if an rogue American military colonel was transshipping illegal drugs to Chimerica via Colombia, we'd be calling for his extradition too.

What the *BLEEP*?

Oh, Colonel? Can you please hold?

Yes, can I get Mendoza on the phone? Oh hello Mendoza. I just called to let you know that you almost *BLEEP*ing doomed Chimerica!

You suggested to me to remove all high-ranking military officers who are protecting Padilla. I didn't know you wanted to remove the entire right-wing of the armed forces!

You think the right-wing is going to take it kindly to being purged? You think they're going to happily enter prison and abandon their support to Padilla? You aren't really that naive, are you?

I'm not going to start a stupid civil war over your insistence for justice, Mendoza. LIMPIA will remain offically banned, but Colonel Ehrlich is restored to his original position. If that means Padilla walks away free...then Padilla walks away free.

I don't really like the LIMIPA event chain that much, but that may be because I don't know how to break it yet. Anyway, I already played a little ahead in the game, so I can show you the results of this chain that I discovered, so far.

First is the news story where the death squads are found not guilty.

Then the story where I give the Farsante Guard an amnesty.

These list of news articles that likely came right after I talked to Padilla and allowed for Padilla to operate his death squad freely.

If Padilla kills 147 people every week (and there is always a possiblity of misidenitification of bodies, an incentive to exaggrate the power of the death squads, or Padilla finding dead bodies and claiming credit for it)...

Well, in this game, one year is 60 weeks, while in the standard Georgian calander, it's only 52 weeks. If I use the Georgian calander, then Padilla kills 7644 people every year. If I use the in-game calander, then Padilla kills 8820 people every year.

In the last few years of Farsante's rule, 'only' thousands die. So it means that death squad violence is even more destructive than before.

In Year 2, Dry Season, Mendoza dies.

The worst thing about this event chain, and why I loath it so much, is that this is the happy ending. The best solution involves giving the death squad free rein to terrorize the left-wingers...into doing something or another, even though El Presidente can still end up implementing the will of the left-wingers anyway. I have no control over the death squads, so I really have to hope only Mendoza dies, but I wouldn't be surprised if one half of the Influential population and the entire National Liberation leadership is butchered by the end of this game. I think I can prevent that situation from happening, but I have no guarrantes.

Oh, and ignore what Sweden says. I won't lose much aid money from the Other countries.

Yet, after all this, I can't really hate Padilla. He's a human being, just like the rest of the Chimericans. For all we know, he could be a good husband and a great father. I still don't know why he does such crimes...and I may never know. But I wonder if it was the same reason that caused Mendoza to launch her movement too...a simple injury, a probable mistake, that has led to Padilla to respond back violently. Maybe. I don't know.

I do know this though: I refuse to believe that the Insurrection respected human rights, and that the National Liberation Front was 'humane'.

Our peace dividend is slowly paying off...so it looks like we're at least improving on that front. I'm actually worried about how small socialist military aid actually is, compared to that of US military aid. I guess the USSR doesn't really care about turning Chimerica into another armed outpost of socialism.

You know how I said that the price controls weren't a bad policy? I was wrong. I was under the impression that the price controls were free, but it turns out that I have to pay for food subsidies, which make sense. The price controls do need some sort of enforcement mechanism.

We aren't really paying for infrastructure, which isn't really good. Infrastructure is an actual investment into our economy and can boost our currency earnings, but as we're so focused on health care and education, we can't really afford to pour money into infrastructure without bankrupting ourselves.

Our health care policy is actually doing quite well though. Not sure if such a graph would look well on a propaganda poster, when compared to United State and the rest of Latin America.

Ironically, despite our waffling over land reform, land holdings by 'other private producers' are increasing. That's due to handing control of the Farsante farms to coffee producers. Of course, coffee producers tend to be rich and middle class, so the poor is still getting shafted.

People are eating 'well', but our price controls are destroying our domestic production of 'foods', despite the fact that we're loaning money to these food producers. We're getting the vote of the urban masses, but the rural farmers are going to be pretty upset at this.

Our grand plan to stimulate export crop production by giving land to coffee producers...isn't working. Cotton production is also going down too. Welp. The only thing that is saving us is a boom in the economy that is driving Cotton and Coffee prices through the roof.

This boom in prices doesn't seem to stimulate our hard currency earnings though. In fact, it seems to have remained...stagnat.

I only find this out later, but it seems that we weren't really handing the coffee producers land for free. We were selling them the land, which meant that we get some currency as a result. However, we're almost done selling off the last of Farsante Farms, so after that, I don't know what will happen to our currency reserves.

We also gain some currency due to us borrowing money.

We're reliant mostly on economic loans to help improve our economy. Most bilateral aid comes from 'Other' countries. It is this bloc that stood behind Farsante during the Insurrection, and it is this bloc that is standing behind us.

The US isn't giving us any money, possibly due to our choice to let socialists send in military advisors. We could have gotten US aid earlier if we asked, but...we didn't. Our loss.

The USSR and Cuba is picking up the tab, but fairly late and possibly not enough to make up the difference.

What We Did Today!*Gave amnesty to the members of the Farsante Guard, only to watch them dirty up their criminal record anyway*Turned Chimerica into a glorious USSR military base, protected by right-wing death squads.*Sent a notrious drug trafficker to the United States, as a consolidation prize.

It is important to note that establishing LIMIPA is the only action of which no minister approves, no matter how conservative they might be.

Really? I always thought that the conservative answer would be to place LIMIPA under the control of Colonel Ehrlich, to minimize human right abuses. Eh.

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Here's a challenge I've been meaning to try, but you might get a kick out of playing: The minister swap Start with ministers in one party, then switch to ministers in another party. This may be the only way to win on a moderate route (as the moderates are wimps until after the initial nation-breaking events run their course).

I won on the moderate route in my first time, but the results were fairly bloody and ended with me being a puppet of Colonel Ehrlich. I'll use that swap through for a different run-through.

Moderates really suck in this game, though it seems somewhat logical to me. The action of the game takes time during the Cold War, when almost every minor country had to choose its team. Also the starting conditions are set up in a way where no middle route is possible: almost every conflict is about choosing between the left and the right.

But yeah, they really look like morons. "OK, freeze the prices. No, wait, don't. Oh, or maybe yes. Let's have a group hug!".

That's silly of course because nearly (but not quite) every nation that prospered in the cold war period did so because they walked a middle ground between capitalism and socialism. Japan and later on South Korea were pretty much the only hard core capitalist countries to prosper. Besides possibly Cuba, no hard core commie countries could really be considered success stories. But middle ground regimes were prospering all over the place, Israel, India, Western Europe and most of the British commonwealth, Turkey, Taiwan and so forth. Even in south america, a lot of the good parts between the periods of instability took place under third way regimes.

That's silly of course because nearly (but not quite) every nation that prospered in the cold war period did so because they walked a middle ground between capitalism and socialism. Japan and later on South Korea were pretty much the only hard core capitalist countries to prosper. Besides possibly Cuba, no hard core commie countries could really be considered success stories. But middle ground regimes were prospering all over the place, Israel, India, Western Europe and most of the British commonwealth, Turkey, Taiwan and so forth. Even in south america, a lot of the good parts between the periods of instability took place under third way regimes.

From these countries, only India can be considered neutral. Israel and Western Europe always was very pro-West, Turkey's forces fought in the Korean War as a part of UN force, and Taiwan was always an enemy of the communist China, so it had no other options. I agree that they can't be considered exemplars of capitalism, but I believe that playing as a part of a winning team mattered.